


The Night Watch

by branwyn



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Douglas is a scheming cad with a soft gooey center, Gen, Genderswap, Hurt/Comfort, Martin is a complicated girl, Nightmares, girl!Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 19:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not because she's a woman. It's because she's a Martin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Watch

Martin is a smallish woman. Her neck is about as big around as Douglas's wrist, and she doesn't stand a hair over 5'5, even wearing the hat. 

How, therefore, she's able to pack so much power into one knuckle-punch, he doesn't know, but it lands on his arm with the force of a ball-peen hammer, and it bloody well _hurts_.

"Ow!" Douglas jerks away from Martin, rubbing his arm and staring down at her in outrage. "That was uncalled for!"

"No it wasn't," says Martin, stooping to pick up her luggage. "If I'd drawn blood, that would have been uncalled for. Though if you ever gamble away my hotel room in a bet with ATC again, I may change my mind about that."

"You can always sleep in Gerti," Douglas suggests. 

"If you were any sort of gentleman, _you'd_ sleep in Gerti," Martin snaps. Her chin tips back, and she begins to march toward the hotel, leaving Douglas staring after her in rising consternation. It takes a few seconds before he recovers himself enough to go after her.

"Now, see here, my girl." Douglas has to jog the last few steps in order to reach her before she disappears in the crowded lobby. "It was you, if I'm not mistaken, who declared the laws of chivalry to be in suspension during all bets, wagers, and word games."

Martin snorts. "Yes, so long as they were between you and me! Anyway, that was only because you claimed you couldn't thumb wrestle me for the Emmenthaler in case you hurt me with your big strong man-hands."

"And in the end I accidentally _sprained your wrist_ ," says Douglas disbelievingly. That had been six months ago, and Douglas still feels vaguely ill when he thinks about it. "My concern was entirely justified!" 

"So you're saying we should go back to you being a chauvinistic prat? Lovely. Here are Gerti's keys, see you in the morning."

"Martin." With tremendous effort, Douglas tries to make his tone even and reasonable. "We are both adults. There's no reason for either of us to throw our backs out trying to sleep in the cabin when Carolyn's finally coughed up the dosh for a semi-decent room."

"Two semi-decent rooms, Douglas." Martin's face screws up in her prissiest expression of self-righteous disapproval. 

_Right,_ thinks Douglas, gritting his teeth. _Be that way, then._

The truth is, he'd only been winding her up, at first. He'd been intending to give Martin the room all along. There's a line separating _sly old dog_ from _dirty old man_ that he has no desire to cross. He'd only followed her into the hotel in order to chivvy her into having dinner with him, after which he intended to make a graceful retreat back to the plane for the night. 

Now, however, he fully intends to hog half the bathroom and keep her awake with his snoring, simply for the pleasure of annoying her. There's only a certain amount of superiority he can take from a girl almost twenty years his junior, without wanting to put her in her place a bit. Not, he hastens to assure himself, because she's a woman, but because she's a Martin. Frankly, she's lucky she's not a man. She wouldn't get away with being half so irritating, if she weren't, occasionally, so terribly charming.

 _Why_ he wanted her to eat with him, he's not entirely certain. The hankering of a divorced man on the far side of middle age for female companionship, in whatever form he can get it? He certainly doesn't want to date Martin. Not that she isn't attractive; she's actually rather lovely, in a completely different way from the polished feminine sophistication that had attracted him to his ex-wives. And it stings in some unaccountable way when she ignores him--he ends up teasing and taunting her just to provoke her into reacting, which is classic pigtail-yanking schoolyard behavior. 

But every time his interest stirs in that direction, Martin says or does something to remind him how obnoxiously _young_ she still is, young in a way Douglas hadn't been when he was thirty. Martin is naive, brittle, fussy, and disconcertingly vulnerable at unexpected moments. Douglas can't pretend that he's indifferent to her, but Martin is the definition of a fixer-upper, in the dating sense, and Douglas is a bit too old to take the challenge on.

Honestly, the best thing that could come out of his taking Martin to dinner is that she might get an adequate meal's nutrition for once. And that, in a nutshell, is probably the best explanation why attempting to date Martin would be a terrible idea. The fourth Mrs Richardson will be a grown woman, not a scrawny girl-child who can't even manage to keep herself fed. Even if the fragile bird-bones of her wrists are rather attractive, in the way they peek out from the sleeves of her uniform.

Douglas turn to Martin as they approach the doors to the lift. She's staring straight ahead, as though trying to forget that he's there. He wonders if she's genuinely uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a room, or if she's merely irritated with him for being scheming and high-handed. He can't quite tell by looking at her.

"I should probably warn you that I snore," he says lightly, pressing the button to call the lift.

"I know you snore, Douglas. I can hear you through the bloody wall when we're in separate rooms. One of the things I was _particularly_ looking forward to about this hotel is that our rooms were supposed to be on opposite sides of the corridor."

Still annoyance, rather than nervousness. Douglas feels himself to be on firmer ground.

"What about you?" he says. "Any awkward traits a potential roommate should know about?"

"If I snored like a freight train, it would be no less than you deserved."

She's still not looking at him, and her delicate features are screwed up in a frankly insulting expression of distaste. Douglas finds his indignation rising in response.

"I know that you're obsessive and single-minded by nature, _Captain_ ," says Douglas, as the lift doors close on them. "But you don't have to be so _tiresome_."

Martin's nostrils flare. Her shoulders tense and go back, and she steadfastly avoids his eyes. Douglas immediately regrets his words, or at least his biting tone. He recognizes that look; it's the sort she gets whenever life is backing her into a corner. He doesn't like it. He's never wanted her to feel defensive with _him_. 

Christ, but she's complicated. She makes him feel like such a brute sometimes, the way she scraps with him, only to flinch at unexpected moments.

"Tell you what," he says, attempting to sound a little friendlier. "If you can resign yourself to the dreadful prospect of our sharing a hotel room for one night, I'll call us even for the Ottery St. Mary trip."

"Oh, are you still under the impression that I owe you for that fiasco?" 

Douglas scowls. He's aware that he ended that particular day with some egg on his face, but his motives had been fairly selfless, as far as his motives go. Martin had assured him, back when Douglas first discovered exactly how she made her living, that moving things larger than you are is simply a matter of physics. Nonetheless, the thought of Martin attempting to shove a piano around with a sprained ankle and only Arthur to help had motivated Douglas to a truly heroic-by-his-standards level of effort on her behalf, and it's slightly hurtful to see Martin scorn it. 

"Oh, all right, yes, fine." Martin seems to see something of what he's feeling in his face, because she waves, a gesture of dismissal or acceptance, and heaves her bag higher up on her shoulder. "Now I think about it, I suppose that at your age sleeping in a row of aeroplane seats is no laughing matter."

"Oh, I say."

"Sorry." She doesn't sound remotely sorry.

The lift doors ding open and deposit them on their corridor. Douglas keys them into the room, then steps aside to let Martin enter first. She takes three steps into the room, and stops. Douglas frowns and peers over her head at the interior room, to see what's brought her up short. 

"…Ah," says Douglas, feeling suddenly and distinctly awkward. "One bed. Wasn't _quite_ expecting that, I admit."

He risks a quick downward glance at the side of Martin's face. Her eyes are wide and there's a deep furrow between her eyebrows. All the humor in the situation abruptly evaporates. Douglas feels uncomfortably like a toad.

He starts to angle his body back toward the open doorway. "I'll just--"

"I'm having the bathroom first," Martin snaps, cutting him off. She strides directly into the bathroom and slams the door shut behind her, without so much as looking at him. 

Douglas blinks after her. Just like that, he's irritated with her again. She does have a positive knack for making him feel about three inches tall. And she's just started up the shower, which suggests she's not particularly interested in going out for dinner--though to be fair, she might simply be unable to afford it. 

Perhaps he should order room service. Although, the mood Martin's in, she might take offense. Would she be too proud to eat anyway? There's never any telling, with her.

He decides to wait until morning for his own shower. Room service is ordered and delivered before Martin turns the shower off; he suspects she's trying to use up all the hot water on purpose. She comes back out of the bathroom a few minutes later, dressed in soft trousers and a ratty t-shirt. With her make up washed away and her hair hanging in bedraggled ringlets, she looks not a day older than twenty.

"There's food," he says. "I accidentally seem to have ordered enough for two. I hope you won't let it go to waste."

Martin rubs distractedly at her hair with a towel and stares down at the pasta with a keen but troubled expression. Eventually, she hangs the towel up, and takes a stiff seat at the table across from him. The next few minutes pass in silence as she attacks her linguini with a single-minded determination he's never seen her direct at anything other than a flight console. It's oddly endearing, but also disconcerting. He'd wonder where she was putting it all, if the answer weren't too painfully clear--she's probably hollowed out her own leg through sheer starvation.

Douglas peers down at his magazine through his reading glasses, trying to look casual and not as though he's keenly aware of Martin's proximity, or nervous that the spacious bed will sudden seem much smaller once they've both climbed into it. 

When Martin's finished her food and all but licked the pattern off the plate, she emits a jaw-cracking yawn and leans back in her chair. Abruptly, she smiles at Douglas.

"Thank you," she says. 

"You're perfectly welcome," he says. "When was the last time you ate, out of curiosity?"

Martin's clearing up the empty food containers, so she shrugs without looking at him. "Sometime yesterday?" she says.

" _Martin_." Douglas lowers his magazine and peers at her in consternation. "Do you want to faint at Gerti's controls? If things are that tight for you, I'm happy to--"

"I know my limits, Douglas," she snaps. "And I frankly resent the implication that I would attempt to fly when I wasn't fit."

"Are you always this defensive when people attempt to exhibit some concern for your well-being?" Douglas snaps back, before he can help himself.

Martin opens her mouth, then looks at the floor. If Douglas were able to read her thoughts, it couldn't be any plainer than the answer is, _I wouldn't know_. She lives with students, who are notoriously narcissistic, and if she ever interacts with friends or family outside of work, he's never heard her mention it. Which means Douglas is the closest thing to a concerned friend she has.

Which is _horrifying_.

Rather than prolonging the awkward silence, Douglas takes his suitcase into the bathroom and changes into a, thankfully, perfectly decent set of pajamas. He doesn't always trouble to bring them, so it's a lucky chance. When he exits the bathroom again, he finds Martin standing beside the bed, touching the pillow and frowning vaguely.

"Something wrong?" he says, with a sinking feeling. He's quite tired now, and it would be a pain to change back into his clothes and go back to Gerti at this hour, but if Martin doesn't stop frowning, he's not going to have a choice. He doubts he'll get any sleep if he's conscious that Martin is actually _afraid_ to sleep in the same bed with him.

"No." Martin clears her throat, and a flush begins to spread along her cheekbones. "But, ah. You were asking, about snoring."

"Oh, yes? Does the Captain perhaps suffer from sleep apnea? A deviated septum? There's surgery for that, you know."

Rather than relaxing under the gentle teasing, Martin's flush deepens.

"I don't know if I snore, or kick, or anything," she says. "I've never slept in the same bed as another person before."

Douglas is still wearing his reading glasses. He remove his glasses carefully, and blinks at her. "Never?" he says faintly. 

"Don't--" Martin's mouth twists.

"No," says Douglas hastily, conscious that she's afraid she's just revealed a vulnerability he might exploit. Not that he would, for God's sake. Does she mean that she's a virgin, or that the only people she's had sex with have been fly-by-night bounders? He's not sure which prospect appalls him more. He's not sure he has any business to have an opinion one way or another. "Just--that's a shame."

He regrets having said it immediately. God knows how she'll interpret a comment like that. Douglas isn't even certain what he meant by it, and he was the one who said it. He tries to imagine what it would be like, never having known the security and comfort of drifting off to sleep in another person's arms. He wonders if he might--no, God, he's not sure even he could offer to simply hold Martin without losing his sang froid and turning things even more awkward than they are already.

But Martin goes on, as though she hadn't heard him, oblivious to the conflict roiling through his thoughts.

"I do--" She stops and clears her throat. "I do have bad dreams, though. Sometimes--sometimes they wake me up."

"Oh," he says, feeling terribly wrong-footed. How bad must they be, if she feels she needs to warn him? "I see." 

Martin nods, a single jerk of the head. Then, with an air of one determined to make the best of a bad situation, she climbs under the covers, immediately rolling onto her side with her back to Douglas's half of the bed. 

"Turn out the light, when you're ready," she says. 

Douglas stands at the foot of the bed, gazing down at her. Her arms are tuck up tightly around her head and shoulders. It's a strangely defensive posture to sleep in, and it makes her look very small. Douglas won't have to worry about being crowded out of the bed. She's left enough room for him to loll against the mattress with his arms spread out, if he wants.

"Good night, then," he says, flipping the wall switch.

"Night," mutters Martin, her voice already thick and tired sounding.

Douglas gets into the bed with as much care as if she were already asleep, trying not to jostle the mattress unnecessarily or disturb Martin's share of the covers. When he rests his head on the pillow, he finds himself suddenly assailed by the clean, soapy smell of her still-damp hair. He wants, with a sudden fierceness that startles him, to reach for her, to tuck her up against him and rest his chin on the top of her head.

Beside him, Martin twitches, and draws her arms in more tightly.

Douglas rolls over and stares into the darkness, willing himself to sleep.

*

He opens his eyes in the darkness about an hour later--he has to squint at the red numbers on the alarm clock before he realizes that it isn't much later, and it isn't the alarm that's awakened him. It's Martin. More specifically, it's Martin's crying.

Douglas rolls over, and freezes. She's still asleep, though she's turned over and lies facing him now. The noises she's making are quiet, choked and breathless, like a child or a small animal. 

Even through the fog of his exhaustion, it's heartbreaking, and Douglas doesn't even stop to think before he reaches out to shake her by the shoulder. He has to shake her again, harder, before she wakes. Her eyes open a crack, and she gasps.

"Don't hurt me, please, I…" Her voice, faint and rough with sleep, is nonetheless too clear to be misunderstood.

Douglas feels cold, and then something hot and heavy settles in the pit of his stomach. He releases her arm, realizing she may have forgotten where she is, and who she's with. Which immediately makes him wonder who she _thinks_ she's with, and where that person is now, and how Douglas is going to dispose of their body when he finds them.

"Martin, it's me, Douglas." He props himself up on one elbow. "Are you all right?"

"No?" she gasps. And then her eyes widen, as though she's just registered his presence. For one long, frozen moment she stares at him. Then she rolls onto her back and covers her eyes with her hand. She draws a deep breath, and chokes on a sob. 

Douglas doesn't know what to do. He knows what he _wants_ to do, but he's frightened of making things worse. For all he knows, he's the reason she had the dream. 

"Do you want to tell me about it?" he says, pitching his voice low. "It might help."

Martin shakes her head. She's still crying--silently, now, but he can feel her trembling.

"I'm sorry," she says, after a moment. "For waking you, I didn't mean--"

"Hey, none of that." Douglas tentatively reaches out to brush his fingers against his arm. "I want to help. What do you need?"

Martin makes a surprised sounding noise through her tears. "Need?" she says, sounding as though she's never considered the possibility that she has needs, or that anyone would want to meet them.

All at once, it's more than Douglas can bear. The need to do _something_ outweighs his fear of doing the wrong thing. So he goes by instinct. He scoots over until their bodies are not quite touching, and he takes hold of her wrist, pulling her hand away from her face. He lays his own hand along her cheek. It looks huge, clumsy and brutish against her delicate features.

"I'm here, you know," he says. "No one is going to hurt you while I'm here."

He wants to say more, promise more, but it would be wishful thinking, mostly. He _can_ promise this much, though. As long as he's nearby, anyone who wants to hurt his captain is going to have to go through him first. And it's not because she's a woman, because she's lovely and frail and young enough to be his daughter. It's because she's Martin. Infuriating, clever, brittle, and absolutely unique.

"Oh God," says Martin, and then she's sobbing as though she'll break into pieces. To Douglas's shock, and fierce satisfaction, she rolls into him, pressing her face to his chest, clinging to his shirt with both hands. Douglas's arms fold around her easily, and he rubs circles against her back until she grows still and limp against him.

In the morning, God knows whether things will have changed between them. Martin may want to forget that it ever happened, and if she does, he will let her. But the next time she snaps at him over paperwork, or chides him in that prissy voice for neglecting safety regulations, he will remember her like this, and know that she trusted him once with a piece of herself no one else may have ever seen. He's broken faith with almost everyone who's ever trusted him in his life, but Martin won't be the next. He's determined.

"You've got me, Martin," he whispers to her hair, wishing he had the courage to say it to her by daylight. "God knows you deserve better, but you've got me at least."

He watches her breathe until dawn, but she doesn't dream again that night.


End file.
